four

Contemporary Views: Air Photography and Remote Sensed Images
From the late 1950s, as satellites and space ﬂight began to compete with airplanes as sources of aerial photography, photography itself became an increasing part of a larger category of aerial images, at least in terms of most military and scientiﬁc applications. It is not just the case that fewer conventional, ﬁlm-based aerial photographs are being taken; rather, a familiar and well-developed technology has been supplemented and increasingly supplanted by digital images made within parts of the electromagnetic spectrum invisible to human eyes. Higher altitudes from which the cameras operate – for example, from satellites – has meant that generally the images have to be obtained remotely rather than by a human eyewitness, and that the only practical means of retrieving them is through electronic transmission, initially via analogue television, more recently by digital means. Digital cameras have also largely displaced ﬁlm in con ventional aerial photography from aircraft, although the variety of ﬁlm sizes from which to choose and ﬁlm’s higher resolution and capacity to soften white hues makes it popular for more professional use and among those able to develop their own photographs. The older analogue transmission technology operated by varying the amplitude and frequency of signals being sent; the newer transmissions reduce everything to data sets of ones and zeroes, creating dramatically greater opportunities for interpreting data and manipulating graphic images.
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The Russian scientist N. P. Krinov made the ﬁrst aerial spectrophotographs of the ground in 1930, and the following year Americans were testing infrared-sensitive ﬁlm from a balloon in the stratosphere. Infrared ﬁlm was used on a limited basis for photoreconnaissance during World War ii, but as altitudes increased and camouﬂage became more sophisticated it became more widely used. Of particular value was the capacity to image troop movements at night, and both the u-2 and sr-71 spy planes carried infrared cameras. Any discussion of aerial photography since the early 1960s necessarily includes a variety of technologies, if for no other reason than to deﬁne why aerial photography itself remains a valuable technical and aesthetic medium. The varied array of aerial imaging has given rise to a new category of spatial documentation, labelled ‘remote sensing’ by Evelyn Pruitt early in the satellite era. Pruitt, a geographer working for the us Ofﬁce of Naval Research in Washington, dc, coined the term to distinguish between aerial views made from airplanes and those made by satellites, the latter optics being more distant from the ground. Today, the term is used more generally to refer to any kind of sensing from above the earth’s surface, including conventional aerial photography (illus. 45). The intense development of rocket engine technology and guidance systems in the late 1950s led to the deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, the ﬁrst truly global weapons system. The only way to keep track of Cold War missile sites was from highaltitude spy vehicles making regular overﬂights of a rival’s territory, which – at least for the United States looking at the Soviet Union – meant from space. This also meant reaching into the infrared spectrum in order to penetrate atmospheric haze, and at the farther end of the

47 NOAA aerial photography of damage caused by Hurricane Camille, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the United States, August 1969.

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spectrum to use temperature differentials in order to show earth surface variation. Use of infrared also allowed spy photography to overcome camouﬂage intended to disguise military sites. Both higher altitudes and use of the broader spectrum had been explored in aircraft-based photography before World War ii. Taking pictures from rockets had been proposed as early as 1891, and was implemented from White Sands with the 1946 launch of a German v2 rocket carrying a motion picture camera. In addition to the u2, the United States deployed the legendary sr-71 – Lockheed’s Blackbird – between 1964 and 1998. Many of the operational details of this spy plane remain classiﬁed, but it functioned most efﬁciently at speeds greater than Mach 3, and from over 80,000 feet in altitude (more than 15 miles or 24 km above the surface) and could overlook 100,000 square miles per hour (or an astonishing 72 square kilometres per second). After 17,300 ﬂights and an unknown number of images taken, it was retired in favour of increased satellite coverage and the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (uavs).

and in 1959 transmitted back to Earth from Explorer vi smudged tv images that constituted the ﬁrst pictures of Earth from space. Since then. while the best satellite images available to civilians have a resolution of around one metre. The Americans responded within months of the Russian success with the launch of Explorer i. the advance in clarity of earth surface imaging has been rapid: a current estimate of capabilities of the most recent satellite in the series. the boundary beyond which an object must exceed orbital velocity to get higher. No longer was atmospheric ﬂight the highest platform from which to observe the world below. but duration and frequency of observation are also important. which took pictures with a ground resolution of 12 metres (40 feet) (illus. only rocket engines are capable of such a feat. By 1964 weather satellites were completing global coverage every 24 hours. Keyhole-12. although the ﬁrst satellite was little more than a radio transmitter. starting with Tiros i. 48). began in 1960 to put up a series of weather and earth observation satellites. The Soviet launch of the ﬁrst of 41 Sputnik satellites in 1957 transformed the landscape of aerial reconnaissance. Ground resolution is a measure of geographical detail and accuracy. The American National Aeronautics and Space Administration agency (nasa).
The look of these clandestinely obtained images.48 Vertical view of a tiger bush plateau in Niger. Unlike aerial photography. Outer space begins approximately 100 km (62 miles) above mean sea level. At present. Satellite image from the declassiﬁed Corona KH-4A national intelligence reconnaissance system. created to respond to the Soviet space programme. as we discuss in the next chapter. 31 December 1965. inﬂuenced the aesthetics of artists working from the air. which in essence is a Hubble telescope aimed downward. The beachball-sized package circled the Earth for 28 days at an orbit ten times higher than even the Blackbird could ﬂy. in turn. is a ground resolution of 10 cm (3–4 inches). That same year the Central Intelligence Agency launched the Keyhole-i spy satellite. which was focused on more permanent
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000 images with its Multi-spectral Scanner. 19 October 2005. The stimulus for a terrestrial imaging programme came from the us Geological Survey (usgs).880 km (22. 49). two kinds of weather satellites circle the globe and provide continuous coverage of almost the entire planet.
50 Weather satellite system. Polar satellites orbit at only 850 km (530 miles) above the Earth and ﬂy longitudinally. Today. nasa’s commitment had been focused wholly on lunar and space studies. Europe. using satellites that sent back medium-resolution digital photographs of the surface. and there were concerns about the value of such information in relation to costs.
. it was 1972 before the agency began a similar programme for ground coverage. Both still and real-time images of Earth’s surface are readily available today through the Internet on a home computer. But military authorities objected that their own secret reconnaissance would be compromised. China and India all have weather satellites in orbit. nasa began collecting continuous and consistent information about the Earth’s resources. and the ﬁrst one alone. Russia. The us Department of Defense has its own dedicated meteorological satellite. While nasa was able to begin systematic imaging of the atmosphere in the mid-1960s. The director of the usgs had seen photographs taken by astronauts in the Mercury and Gemini programmes in the 1960s and recognized the value of images from space for his agency’s work. which operated until 1978. Once these objections had been overcome. vegetation and settlement – weather satellites produced images of atmospheric phenomena: cloud and circulation patterns as well as surface temperatures on land and water. geology. acquired more than 300.74
surface features – topography. As of 2007. The United States. launched 2 October 1966.300 miles). the programme had
49 ESSA 3 Satellite. Geosynchronous craft are positioned to maintain a stationary position above the equator at 35. and cover an entire hemisphere with instruments imaging in both visible and infrared parts of the spectrum. the only one known to be able to provide images in the visible spectrum of the Earth at night. the American agency responsible for national topographic mapping. 50). and animated by time-lapse technology (illus. in addition. measured by infrared reﬂexivity (illus. There have been a total of seven Landsats launched. The continuous stream of data they provide is rendered into graphic form in the highly coloured weather maps we have grown familiar with.

however. could not rely solely upon satellite images for mapping purposes. taking approximately 400 per day. The French spot system was developed as an alternative. allowing continuous monitoring of surface resources and land uses.51 The Aral Sea on 4 June 1977. 51).5 metres (illus. The usgs. 7 September 1989 and 27 May 2006. Landsat image. which demanded precisely consistent aerial photographs at a higher resolution and without cloud cover in order to update its topographical maps. In 1980 it started the National High Altitude Photography programme to document the contiguous 48 states in
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logged in more than two million images. there have been ﬁve satellites offering images in both black-and-white and colour at a resolution of 2. European satellite monitoring system of earth resources and offers surface images of similar quality. Launched initially in 1986.

Hawaii was added. Films are shot along north–south traverses keyed to 7. Each nine-inch photograph covers a quarter quadrangle and there are strict speciﬁcations regarding sun
52 San Diego. using nine-inch ﬁlm. 3o September 1996.000 feet and the usgs began acquiring photos in both black-and-white and colour infrared. the altitude was halved to 20.
. each image covering a little more than ﬁve square miles. NAPP.000 ft) every ﬁve to seven years.76
black-and-white from 12.5-minute quadrangles (illus. In 1987 the programme was renamed the National Aerial Photography Program. 52).190 metres (40.

Inc. – named after the satellites and funded in part with venture capital funds from the cia – developed a geospatial application that used digital remote sensing data called Earth Viewer. and although individual cars can be distinguished. The site has raised concern among some critics over privacy and intrusion. 53). Nevada. Their viewer has a resolution of at least 15 metres for most land areas. constructed in the 1950s. Essentially a user-friendly Geographical Information System – that is. In 2004 Google bought the company and the following year launched what is now the most widespread aerial viewing mechanism currently available. Some citizens in the United Arab Emirates have expressed indignation on seeing through
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.000 rolls of cartographic quality aerial photography. stereoscopic coverage and image inspection. and allows a wide variety of overlays providing locational information. In response. cloud cover. to which some 700 are added each year. In 2007 the view of a United States Navy building on Coronado Island in San Diego. Google Earth. minimal haze. although in some cities such as Las Vegas. As computers moved out of government laboratories and military facilities and into homes and private ofﬁces. it is as high as 15 cm (6 inches). mapping software companies added programs available to civilians.angle. The system moves seamlessly in scale from digital satellite images at the higher altitudes to aerial photographs for lower levels. allowing detailed historical interpretation as well as geographical examination. The popularity of the site has been great enough to produce physical changes on the ground. criticisms that have been voiced since the early days of aerial photography. Keyhole. was modiﬁed by vegetation planting at a cost of $600. The current usgs archive comprises over 10.000 when its ground plan was shown from Google Earth images to take the form of a swastika (illus. as well as being increasingly tied into ground photography of cities such as Los Angeles. a computer and software system able to manipulate locationally coordinated data from different sources and present them in various graphic formats to allow web-based mapping – Google Earth offers the viewer the conceit of ﬂying over the earth at altitudes ranging from outer space (nearly 16. high-resolution images are deliberately at least three years old.000 miles) down to less than 100 feet. licence plates remain unreadable.

and incorporate the data collected on pollen distribution through air samples over the same area.53 Google map image of the Naval Amphibious Base. Coronado. As with Google Earth. aerial photographs and computerized information from a gis.
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the site the disproportionate areas of land occupied by royal residences as opposed to the crowded quarters of ordinary citizens. which have allowed their longstanding close relationship with topographic and thematic maps to be further enhanced. essentially a more powerful version of Google Earth. combining maps. showing the swastika shaped building. to scan a topographical map into a gis. aerial photographs play a signiﬁcant role in Geographic Information Systems (gis). then superimpose
. yet to be developed. San Diego. In 2004 the us Undersecretary for Intelligence in the Department of Defense announced a programme to provide the American military with continuous real-time coverage of most of the Earth from aerial surveillance. This technology allows one. just as companies near airﬁelds used their roofs as advertising signs in the early days of ﬂight. for example. while in many cities business and individuals have modiﬁed their roofs to become more aesthetically pleasing from above. These would be available to its personnel over a secure ‘war net’.

selecting and removing elements to produce a satisfactory image. weather balloons and ground-based sensors to compile information on environmental factors such as air temperature. Peru. multiinstrumented image of almost any place on the planet. The system was generating so much data – terabytes per day – that nasa computers were overwhelmed and analysts simply dumped the information onto storage discs. Repeated over the course of a year. humidity and aerosol concentrations from the ground up through to the stratosphere. The move towards a totalizing bird’s-eye view of the world that began with imaginative maps and became instrumented with the technologies
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. All these activities rely heavily on gps coordinates. Another example might be to correlate relevant data points for archaeological sites on aerial photographs in order to predict sites for digging (or to select where to aim a satellite-based groundpenetrating radar at the indicated sites to see what might lie below the surface). gis evolved before the gps system was put in place. an early example being the Canadian Department of Agriculture’s use of a computer-based system in 1962 to correlate different data on land usage in rural parts of the country. allowing a user for the ﬁrst time to pull up a fully integrated.
both over an aerial photograph. the results can be animated to allow predictions of which households are most likely to suffer most from allergies under different weather conditions. They were unable to work out how to even organize the data until Google Earth was established.54 Nazca. and adding such information as wind direction and speed. spiral drawn across the desert plain. coordinating data from satellites. nasa established the Earth Observing System (eos) in 1999. now they superimpose it on 3d global maps in what is called iEarth. Large-scale earth-moving equipment used for mining or levelling construction sites now rely heavily on aerial topographic survey: ‘robodozing’ has replaced the white sticks and theodolites of the surveyor with remote sensors in the bulldozer’s cabin linking satellite data directly to the machine’s blade.

Beyond the thrill of virtual ﬂight and observation at hitherto inaccessible angles. tax agencies.000 square km (53. such as the Global Hawk. 40-degree angle from the ground.55 Satellite view of a tropical storm in the Caribbean. The uav carries radar.000 square miles).812 metres (65. at altitudes of up to 19.000 feet). The images are then stitched together and made available on a program that allows the viewer to zoom in and ﬂy around individual buildings. not far from where the us Army established its ﬁrst aerial reconnaissance school – is currently creating the most detailed aerial views of cities ever made. will eventually extend many of these technologies into real-time availability. for example.
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of camera and ﬂight continues at an ever more rapid pace. law enforcement and public safety personnel ﬁnd the service invaluable. creating digital photographs of every square metre from all directions. The company sends out dozens of Cessna light aircraft that ﬂy grids over major cities. remaining aloft for up to 24 hours and covering an area of 137. Pictometry – a small company located in Rochester. including at a low. electronic and optical sensors that
. These vehicles can ﬂy from the West Coast of America to Australia. oblique. The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (uav).

went to a drugstore. when John Glenn became the ﬁrst American to orbit the Earth. displaying the kind of initiative characteristic of earlier aviation pioneers. Among the most dramatic and widely reproduced space photographs are those taken during the Apollo lunar programme that lasted from 1961 to 1975. the gains for environmental science as well as commercial exploitation of earth resources are considerable. and had it adapted so he could operate it wearing his pressure suit and clumsy gloves. nasa had resisted the idea that the astronaut should take photographs from the Mercury capsule. Each of the seventeen Apollo missions included a highly detailed photographic programme that included still images taken with modiﬁed Hasselblad cameras.
The most obvious and signiﬁcant developments in obtaining and recording the aerial view of earth have been the replacement of ﬁlm with various forms of digital sensing devices and the replacement of the human eyewitness with mechanical instruments. Glenn. An early and surprising example comes from 1962. Over the course of the following 30 years American astronauts took 268. Yet the camera and the human eyewitness retain a powerful hold on the imagination. and that it added weight to an already ﬁnely calibrated capsule load for a task considered irrelevant to the mission’s science goals.000 photos from orbit. and command an authority that is difﬁcult for the purely mechanical image to challenge. Book collections of these images have sold well.can penetrate clouds and dust and operate at night. These Swedish instruments. and their Soviet counterparts produced a similar archive. His dramatic snapshots were widely reproduced and so popular that they convinced nasa to provide each future astronaut with a personal camera (illus.
The Camera in Space
56 John Glenn’s photographs of Earth from the Mercury 6 mission. 20 February 1962. They were worried it would interfere with his ﬂying. purchased an inexpensive 35 mm rangeﬁnder. 56). While the military uses of such technology are obvious. and the website hosted by nasa has been a signiﬁcant public relations tool in the agency’s relations with the public and in lobbying the us Congress for appropriations. originally developed
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who in 1943 had written optimistically of the ‘airman’s view’ as a new vision of earth. ‘Earthrise’ is the name given to a photograph taken by Bill Anders from Apollo 8 in 1968. The poet Archibald MacLeish.
from captured German air reconnaissance cameras. opening up a new perspective on the planet’s relations with other worlds (illus. mounted in cities around the world (illus. the ﬁrst ﬂight to orbit the Moon.57 Michael Light. 59). The vast archive of photographs from the programme is now available on the web. 14–24 November 1969. were selected by nasa because of their interchangeable lenses and magazines and because of the quality of the images offered by their 6 x 6 cm roll ﬁlm. Yet the best-remembered and most impactful photographs that we have inherited from the Apollo missions were not initially given any priority. from a transparency by Richard Gordon. photograph from the book Full Moon of Intrepid lunar module above the moon before descent. Full Moon. The most distant aerial view of Earth would be taken mechanically in 1990 by the Voyager spacecraft from more than 6. But the two best-known. and they were what nasa had deemed ‘targets of opportunity’. penned a widely syndicated op-ed piece for the New York Times on Christmas Day 1968. 57). The focus on the Moon. and perhaps best-loved. views of the planet from space were taken with hand-held 70mm Hasselblads by astronauts during the Apollo missions. nor were they of planned photographic targets.
58 ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image of Earth from Voyager 1. 1990. or objects of interest selected by the astronauts themselves. astronomical phenomena and the space vehicles and equipment themselves reﬂected the scientiﬁc pretensions and practical demands of the missions. the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image in which our planet is very nearly invisible and certainly indistinguishable among the stars (illus. Still photography aboard the Apollo spacecraft was very tightly planned – weight considerations made for severe limitations on the numbers of rolls of ﬁlm that could be carried. and thus the ﬁrst to permit humans to witness for themselves the phenomenon of Earth rising over the lunar surface. These are photographs of the Earth taken from sufﬁciently far away to reveal the round globe ﬂoating as a planet in space. claiming that
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. many of which were re-mastered in the 1990s by the artist Michael Light for his exhibition. 58). It includes spectacular aerial photographs of the Moon’s surface from different altitudes. Seeing the blue and white globe juxtaposed with the sterile grey surface of the Moon inverted a familiar and romantic nocturnal image.4 billion km (4 billion miles) distance.

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or even wholly inverted. (right) 60 ‘Blue Marble’/Image of Earth from Apollo 17. 1968. In the Apollo 17 photograph the Earth sits centre frame. quality and indeed it has become a powerful icon for the global environmental movement. far too close to capture the planet in a single frame.
. and a band of sickle shapes indicating the westerly storm systems moving over the southern mid-latitudes. it has become the deﬁnitive God’s-eye view. forced to recognize the spatial and environmental limitations imposed by their ‘home planet’. which hovers a mere 354 km (220 miles) above the Earth. when you consider the speed that the ‘terminator’ or shadow of night passes over the planet.000 km (28. This colour combination. has become perhaps the most widely reproduced photograph in human history. even more dramatic picture of the globe.
Previous pages: (left) 59 ‘Earthrise’ from Apollo 8. The ‘Earthrise’ photograph was followed four years later by another. the thin shroud of atmosphere and the watery quality of the picture give it an intense. to give it its more popular name.000 miles). in part because we are aware that a human witness was behind the camera and a human ﬁnger operated the shutter. On the outbound leg of the ﬁnal Apollo 17 mission to land on the Moon. No human has since been higher than the orbit of the International Space Station. almost mystical. 60). or ‘The Blue Marble’. The Arabian Peninsula is clearly demarcated and parts of the Australasian archipelago are also just visible. as17-22727. the tiny capsule with steamed windows from which it was taken and the fact that astronauts shot photographs from the hip. Although there had been some planning in terms of the distance from Earth and the time and angle at which this photograph would best be taken. even though it is often reproduced with South at the top. The latitudinal bands of climate are apparent in the varying land colours and the streams of cloud that circle the earth form a continuous stipple along the Equator. 1972. it is a spectacular achievement (see illus.86
this photograph represented a ‘Copernican moment’ in which humans for the ﬁrst time saw themselves as ‘Riders on the Earth’. to use the nasa number allocated to the image. A portrait of the planet from 45. dominated by the blue of the oceans and the white of cloud and Antarctic snow. the crew captured a spectacular series of images of the un-shadowed Earth. with the continent of Africa dominating the land-masses.

a non-proﬁt organization founded in 1888 that from the 1920s onward has been a prominent sponsor of photographic expeditions.
If the human ability to imagine the world from above is a hardwired cognitive skill stemming from manipulating our bodily environment at different scales. so that not only is the technology of aerial photography and remote sensing a principal source of data for environmental monitoring and modelling of such phenomena as climate change.Popular Air Photography
61 California freeways: Santa Ana.000 square miles of the continent. then our aerial view of the world has been equally shaped by the history of photography from aircraft and satellites. ice melting. made and published the ﬁrst natural-colour aerial photographs (see illus. 62). Pomona. a young climber and geologist from Harvard who had been making aerial photographs of mountains since 1928. vegetation loss and species extinction. including Richard Byrd’s ﬁrst ﬂight over the South Pole in 1929. the largest amount of newly discovered land photographed from the air at the time. The following year Melville Bell Grosvenor. in the popular imagination. but. In 1941 the society made its extensive and unique archives available to the American military. including its aerial photographs. A major proponent of the aerial view and its deployment as a visual rhetoric in the environmental movement is the National Geographic Society. Since the 1970s the aerial perspective seems to have become closely bound to environmental concerns. aerial images of the earth’s surface and landscapes have come to be framed almost exclusively through an environmentalist lens. Washburn taught at Harvard’s Institute of
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. 1956. son of the Society’s president and later editor of its magazine. and the Golden State. His expedition took aerial photographs of approximately 60. Among the aerial photographers sponsored by the National Geographic Society was Bradford Washburn. which were considered a valuable strategic resource.

and in 1936 became the director of what would become the Boston Museum of Science. Climbers today routinely use his black-and-white images to plan ascents. a National Geographic cover in 1930.Geographical Exploration from 1935 until 1942. in part. Washburn personiﬁed the society’s editorial aesthetic. but the images are also exhibited in art galleries and museums. which was increasingly deﬁned. and remotely sensed images are now an integral part of the publication’s graphic toolkit. National Geographic is published in 32 languages and read by an estimated 50 million people each month. and were published in the magazine National Geographic. The height of aspiration for amateur photographers for decades has been to take pictures of the quality used by the magazine. he inherited a 53-pound Fairchild aerial camera from Captain Albert William Stevens.
. including those made from
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62 The first successful aerial colour photograph used the Finaly process: the Statue of Liberty National Monument. New York. the balloonist who in 1930 took the ﬁrst photograph showing the curvature of the Earth. and the younger man used it to make what are still the most detailed aerial portraits of mountains and glaciers in Alaska and the Yukon. its covers are often aerial photographs. Stevens taught Washburn how to use the large-format roll camera. While teaching. by the use of oblique aerial images as the paragon of geographical veracity.

Windstorm.
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. Thus the blanketing of the planet with remote sensors that come ever closer to providing continuous. 1942.63 Bradford Washburn. Mount McKinley. so the tastes of the public have followed. As the magazine’s concerns have evolved over time to broaden from exploration and conservation into environmental research. Quite the opposite: familiarity with aerial imagery through magazines and programs such as Google Earth seems to have stimulated the demand for other aerial imagery. Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s aerial photos have often appeared in National Geographic. real-time coverage from above has not replaced photography made from the air.
the air. In fact.

nor one who transforms reality.000 images he curated both show and book. He worked during World War ii as a civilian taking both ground-based and aerial photographs for the us War Department. shooting 15. Arthus-Bertrand has claimed that he is not an artist. Although he has
64 Uluru or Ayers Rock in Australia’s Northern Territory. His vertical and oblique images.000 ﬂying hours. He uses gps to keep track of his vantage points. . have an immediate aesthetic appeal. reproduced in high-deﬁnition with intense colour. Its ‘eye-candy’ images are juxtaposed with what has become a predictable message about humans’ negative impacts on the Earth and the need for ‘sustainability’. Arthus-Bertrand and his team of fifteen assistants often scout locations beforehand and are not shy about posing people in the pictures. Much the same could be said of Robert Cameron.90
Born in 1946. but it wasn’t until 1969 that he published the ﬁrst of his seventeen Above . books.5 million copies. Earth from the Air. starting with his home city of San Francisco.000 rolls of ﬁlm. whose ﬁrst camera was a Kodak Brownie given him in 1919. the latter consisting of 195 photos taken over 75 countries and every continent. was the product of ﬁve years and 3. but a photographer who seeks to capture and record the world as it is. His millennial photography exhibition. when light angles offer the most dramatic contrasts and most saturated colour.
. including the Antarctic. Most of the photographs were taken from a helicopter with the door off during two-hour-long sessions at daybreak and during the ‘golden hour’ before sunset. From a stock of 100. he sold balloon tours to tourists. His book The Earth from the Air: 365 Days has sold more than 2. becoming convinced that seeing the world from above was the most powerful environmental education tool. shoots through a polarizing ﬁlter to cut down on glare and operates a variety of cameras in 35mm and medium formats. . Arthus-Bertrand ran a game reserve in France before moving to Kenya in 1976 to study African wildlife. or at least as we perceive it. To support his research.

Chicago and Las Vegas. These images. and his series has sold a total of 2. Los Angeles.65 Yann Arthus-Bertrand. but
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. he is best known for his photographic books of large American cities such as New York.
worked over Yosemite and Hawaii. Village in the heart of rice fields near Antananarivo. he prefers to use a medium-format Pentax with its gyrostabilizer from a helicopter and works characteristically from about 1. too.5 million copies.000 feet (305 metres). he includes both vertical and oblique shots. are intended to emphasize dramatic. Like Arthus-Bertrand. Paris and London. Madagascar. and are photographed in sharp light and glamorous colour. They are not intended to be analytic. eye-catching scenes of iconic places and structures. Although he has photographed from a variety of aircraft.

Given that up to as many as a quarter of these passengers may be sitting next to a window. is the most widely used commercial aircraft.000 feet (10. a Boeing 737 lands somewhere on the globe every ﬁve seconds.5 million domestic and international ﬂights now pass over the United States alone every year.000 delivered by April 2009 and another 2. it would seem such books have a large potential market. Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air (2004) and its sequel Window Seat: Europe (2006) by Gregory Dicum use aerial photography to teach people landscape interpretation from 35. Algeria. with 6. that it is a unique opportunity for the general public to educate itself about the world.
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Cameron seems to prefer oblique shots providing a long landscape impression and geographical context.7 km).4 billion by the Airports Council International.66 Houses in Souk El Oued. which carries 180 seats on average. Two of these appeared early in the twenty-ﬁrst century. most of the aerial images he reproduces in the book are satellite and high-altitude aerial images derived from government agencies. The total number of commercial air passengers worldwide in 2006 was estimated at 4. who learned aerial-photo interpretation while attending Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. An extension of popular aerial photography is the appearance of handbooks intended for use by air travellers wishing to recognize the ground over which they are ﬂying. believes that time in the air should not be wasted. In fact. Dicum. while the Frenchman favours pattern in the landscape. taking advantage of the fact that 10. produced from a more vertical angle. According to the company.
67 Bird’s-eye view of a swimming pool.200 on order. The Boeing 737.
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The same year as the second of Dicum’s books appeared. who spends much of her own time ﬂying from city to city as a Photoshop instructor for Adobe Systems. holds degrees in psychology and photography. Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking by Julieanne Kost is marketed as a self-help book for people seeking a creative outlet.
.000 images made during ﬁve years. and is open about
68 Barringer Meteorite Crater near Winslow. The book consists of a manifesto for creativity. and realized that the view out of her plane window offered unique possibilities. another book about seeing the world from a commercial airliner was published. Unlike many contemporary aerial photographers. especially during long ﬂights. Kost often includes the wing or engine nacelle in her frame. Kost. She found herself needing a way to continue ﬁne art photography while teaching digital techniques. Arizona.
69 Winter in Chicago metro area. a portfolio selected from 3. and a helpful technical section about both ﬁlm and digital aerial work. a feature often seen by passengers during transcontinental jetliner flights.

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71 Rape seed field.70 Parking lot. northern California.
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using not only lens ﬁlters but also digital tools to clean up and enhance her ground images. such as environmental analysis or polemics. Her aerial photography is aimed at creative and artistic outcomes. It is on this dimension that we focus our ﬁnal chapter.72 Field pattern.
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. showing how clouds interact with not just terrain but also with each other and light. and thus has no overt tie to mapmaking or remote sensing objectives. She is also one of those rare artists who will photograph the atmosphere as well as the ground. but which have largely been subordinated to the instrumental uses of aerial photography. Her work thus points toward those artistic aspects of aerial photography that developed early in the evolution of the medium.

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